A leading GOP congressional candidate in Alabama has greeted Rep. Parker Griffith's entrance into the Republican Party with a mailer tying him to prominent Democratic politicians.

Les Phillip, who is now running a primary campaign against Griffith, put out a mailer on Monday noting the fundraising that Griffith did on behalf of former DNC Chair Howard Dean and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. That fundraising, of course, occurred when Griffith was a Democrat.

The Alabama pol officially switched political parties last week, citing differences with Democratic leadership. But opposition research is complicating that explanation.

Phillip, who has won the endorsement of several prominent conservative figures (including former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee), highlights two separate $1,000 donations Griffith made to Dean and Reid's respective campaign committees. Playing up the findings a bit, the mailer accuses Griffith of giving "THOUSANDS in campaign cash to Liberal Democrats."

Also pictured on the mailer is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). That's a bit odd. Griffith doesn't appear to have donated to the House leader's campaign committee. Nor was he an avid backer. In fact, before actually switching parties Griffith made it quite clear he no longer supported Pelosi in her current post.

A growing chorus of Republican officials is pledging to push for a full repeal of health care reform legislation, weeks before a bill actually lands on the president's desk for signing.

In an email to the Huffington Post, Alex Conant, a former RNC press secretary and an adviser to possible 2012 candidate Tim Pawlenty, said that while Republicans will push their own health care reform agenda in upcoming elections, they also plan to run on a promise to nullify what Democrats are poised to pass.

"Republicans see last week's health care vote as a top issue in the 2010 campaign," wrote Conant. "As for the repeal, Republicans have a truck full of ideas on how to expand access, improve quality, and lower costs. I'm sure there will be some focus on repealing provisions of the Democrats' plan, but the most pressing issue will likely be addressing health care costs and lowering the financial toll this bill will have on taxpayers. Republicans will certainly campaign on repealing $500 billion of tax increases for a bloated government-run health care."

The remarks are one of the most telling indications to date that the health care reform battles of 2009 will be on the ballot in 2010 and 2012. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told "Meet the Press" on Sunday that he expects "every Republican in 2010 and 2012" to "run on an absolute pledge to repeal this bill." Meanwhile the Plum Line, which has done much of the work advancing this story, quoted Max Pappas, the Vice President for Public Policy of Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, saying that Republicans were "going to have to prove that they are worthy of their votes" by pledging to repeal health care reform.

Noted Republican pollster John McLaughlin predicts that a campaign to repeal reform could be a common thread in 2010 both because the conservative base is clamoring for the push and also because it resonates with voters outside of the Republican tent.

"Chances are it would be very popular with their base, absolutely and it would probably attract seniors and independent voters who are worried about spending and taxing," he told the Huffington Post.

Pressed about how low-income and minority communities (specifically the Hispanic population) will react to calls to repeal a law that could provide them with thousands of dollars in individual health care subsidies, McLaughlin responded: quite well.

"You are assuming that the Hispanic vote is some sort of uninsured, very working-class monolithic vote. With the Hispanic vote you have a lot of small business owners who won't like the mandates in here and won't like the taxes in here... what's going to happen is, Hispanic voters who are voters, who are citizens already paying taxes, are really not going to like the outcome of this."

McLaughlin's analysis is supported by other public survey data, notably a National Journal report published in August which showed that Hispanics -- despite making up a sizable portion of the uninsured -- were tepid on the various reform proposals making their way through Congress. Though not every Republican pollster is ready to predict how health care reform will play with different groups or constituencies.

"I have not asked a question like this so don't yet have an opinion," Bill McInturff, a prominent GOP pollster who has worked extensively on health care reform, told the Huffington Post. "When we do, I think it will be a perfect example of the bromide that a poll is a snapshot of only one point in time. My guess is reaction to this bill is not set and will vary over time in a way that is difficult to predict right now."

If the GOP wants to debate the repeal of reform, Democrats aren't exactly quivering. According to data compiled by the White House, states with several key Senate races stand to gain the most with the passage of reform legislation -- statistics that will be pointed out ad nauseam once the election season heats up.

* In Illinois, for example, "1.8 million residents who do not currently have insurance and 612,000 residents who have nongroup insurance could get affordable coverage through the health insurance exchange."

* In Colorado, "826,000 residents who do not currently have insurance and 345,000 residents who have nongroup insurance could get affordable coverage through the health insurance exchange."

* In Florida, "4 million residents who do not currently have insurance and 1.1 million residents who have nongroup insurance could get affordable coverage through the health insurance exchange."

* And in Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty's home state, "519,000 residents who do not currently have insurance and 356,000 residents who have nongroup insurance could get affordable coverage through the health insurance exchange."

"If a Republican Senate candidate is going to look his voters in the eye next November, and pledge if elected to roll back historic reform which will have ended appalling insurance practices, afforded coverage to hundreds of thousands constituents, brought down costs for families and small businesses and lowered the deficit, then I volunteer to help that campaign make pitch calls to reporters," said Eric Schultz, press secretary for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

One dominant feature of the story of Sen. Joseph Lieberman's role in the current health care debate is the regret felt by some Connecticut voters who once supported his candidacies.

That is not limited to the 2006 election, when the Connecticut senator lost the Democratic primary to the more progressive Ned Lamont, only to run and win in the general as an Independent. It also includes recollections of Lieberman's initial run for the Senate in 1988.

Back then his opponent was Lowell Weicker, the erstwhile moderate Republican Senator who -- like Lieberman -- was best known as an irritant to his own party's leadership. Lieberman used Weicker's independence against him in the election, accusing the Senator of fairweatheredness: of being neither a "real Republican" nor a "real Democrat" -- an accusation that could now be aptly applied to the accuser.

Politics being what it is, Democrats were jubilant in 1988 when Lieberman wrested control of a Senate seat long in GOP hands (given Weicker's moderate positions, the National Review rejoiced at his departure as well). Looking back now, however, a bit of buyers' remorse has set in for some voters.

While Lieberman was busy derailing hopes for a public option for insurance coverage in recent months, Weicker was giving speeches touting the role government should play in the health care system. In a little-noticed address the former senator gave to the Muslim Coalition of Connecticut in late October, he made the following declaration:

Senators and Representatives have great health insurance paid for by the citizenry -- us. In addition, they have a first rate "medical home" with access to check ups and preventive care at the Bethesda Naval Hospital or the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and a complete physician's office in the Capitol. As a retired Senator, I still carry my government health insurance which covers me, my wife, and disabled son at a rate of some three hundred plus dollars a month.

So, I know Congress can take care of itself. Now we need to remind them that they have to take care of the rest of the country. Every American, regardless of race, ethnicity, and economic circumstances should have the opportunity to be as healthy as he or she can be. Since this is a representative democracy, every American deserves the same health care as a member of Congress. If that's too expensive for the nation, then it's too expensive for Congress.

The remarks may not have been an explicit endorsement of a public plan (as it was conceived by Democratic lawmakers in the House and the Senate). But associates of Weicker tell the Huffington Post that he is, indeed, supportive of such a provision. Laura Segal, a spokesperson for Trust for America's Health -- a health care reform advocacy group on which Weicker serves as president of the board -- said that, in an ideal world Weicker would "favor [a] single-payer" health care system. The executive director of the group, Jeff Levi, added that both the organization and Weicker understood that the public option was both popular and efficacious.

"We certainly make the general observation that the public option is not something to be afraid of," said Levi. "And that, whether it was in the form of Medicare expansion or creating an [additional] plan, millions of millions of Americans like a government-run option. No one wants their Medicare taken away and that is a perfect example of a public option. When the market fails, the government steps in. We do that with Medicare. We do that with Medicaid with poor people and disabled people. Almost half of health care spending now is government spending."

Weicker, who is currently traveling and unreachable for comment, switched party affiliations later in his career and won election as an Independent candidate for governor. His evolution as a political figure somewhat reflects the changing politics in the Nutmeg state and the broader New England region -- where more moderate Republicans have been purged in favor of liberal Democrats. And yet, while Weicker gravitated away from the principles of the GOP, his former opponent (Lieberman) has moved towards them, much to his and others' chagrin.

"Very frankly, if he doesn't want to be held accountable... on an issue as important as this, it's not going to bode well for him in the future,'' Weicker told The Hartford Courant during the height of the health care debate. "The state is very much for health care reform. There comes a day of reckoning.''

If there was any question whether or not the 2010 election season was heating up, it was dispelled on Monday morning when a Republican Senate candidate from Illinois released an ad questioning whether his primary opponent is a homosexual.

Andy Martin, a noted conservative dirty trickster, put out a spot on local radio in which he pushes a "solid rumor" that fellow Senatorial aspirant, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), "is a homosexual."

"I helped expose many of Barack Obama's lies in 2008," the ad goes. "Today, I am fighting for the facts about Mark Kirk. Illinois Republican leader Jack Roeser says there is a 'solid rumor that Kirk is a homosexual.' Roeser suggests that Kirk is part of a Republican Party homosexual club. Lake County Illinois Republican leader Ray True says Kirk has surrounded himself with homosexuals."

"Mark Kirk should tell Republican voters the truth."

The seedy spot seems to take a page out the Karl Rove playbook -- in which allegations of homosexuality are pushed by innuendo and 'simple demands for the truth.' In a statement to a local Illinois station, the Kirk camp vehemently condemned and denied its content.

"The ad is not true and is demeaning to the political process. The people of Illinois deserve better," said Kirk campaign manager Eric Elk in a written statement.

Martin, it should be noted, is quite proficient in the art of political smear. He was profiled by the New York Times during the 2008 campaign as "The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama." His notoriety stems from his insistence that "Obama is a Muslim who has concealed his religion." The story went on to note that Martin had "filed so many lawsuits that a judge barred him from doing so in any federal court without preliminary approval."

Martin usually dismisses charges of hyper-partisanship by noting that he once was an affiliated Democrat. Certainly, the accusations he is currently leveling against Kirk suggest his interests have more to do with publicity and political advancement than any particular ideological agenda.

Accusing an opponent of being a closeted homosexual is the type of crass politics one sees as an election or primary day approaches. There is still well over a month until the primary election -- slated to take place on February 2 -- so expect this stuff to continue flying.

"The issue is not homosexuality, the question is hypocrisy; people are entitled to their privacy, they are not entitled to live public lives in the closet," Martin said in a statement announcing his ad.

UPDATE: With the likelihood quite high that Kirk will end up winning the GOP nomination, the Illinois Republican Party put out a statement on Monday condemning Martin's ad and accusing him of fabricating the charge of homosexuality.

The Illinois Republican Party disavows the statements made today by Mr. Andrew Martin in his statewide radio advertisements. His statements today are consistent with his history of bizarre behavior and often times hate-filled speech which has no place in the Illinois Republican Party. Mr. Martin will no longer be recognized as a legitimate Republican Candidate by the Illinois Republican Party.

In addition, it has been brought to our attention that Mr. Martin's sources are now denying any such statements or allegations. According to Raymond True, a leader of the Republican Party in Lake County:

"Mr. Martin did not contact me in any way before making his announcement. The comments attributed to me are completely false. I request through the media that Andy Martin cease and desist from making any additional statements that are incorrectly attributed to me."

President Barack Obama has worked hard to forge a solid political alliance with Michael Bloomberg. He courted the New York City mayor during the presidential campaign, sought out his views on topics from gun control and education, and offered only the most tepid of endorsements for Bill Thompson, Bloomberg's last challenger, even though he was the endorsed candidate of Obama's own party.

On Sunday, however, Bloomberg threw a wrinkle into the relationship when he leveled a rather sharp critique at the health care legislation Obama is poised to sign into law.

"You know, if you really want to object to something in this bill, number one, I have asked congressperson after congressperson. Not one can explain to me what's in the bill, even in the House version. Certainly not in the other version," Bloomberg said during an appearance on "Meet the Press." "And so for them to vote on a bill that they don't understand whatsoever, really, you got to question how-- what kind of government we have. Number two, when they talk about bending the curve as -- the governor said, bending the curve is a flimflam euphemism for increasing costs, but we're going to say we'll do it at slightly lower rate than we would have otherwise."

"They are not talking about reducing costs," he added. "They're talking about changing the first derivate, slowing the growth down. And when you look at where the cost savings are going to be, well, they're going to cut something out of Medicare and Medicaid. Now anybody that runs for office will tell you, you don't do that. I mean, the bottom line is it's so politically explosive, it really would be a first time in the history of the world that they ever cut anything [from those programs]."

Bloomberg did credit Obama himself for being willing to tackle some of the tough aspects of health care reform, telling host David Gregory that his quibbles were with Congress. But his comments, nevertheless, represent a departure of sorts from the pro-reform camp. Bloomberg had been hailed by the White House as a prominent non-Democrat supporter of getting legislation passed. In recent days, however, both he and New York Governor David Patterson have raised concerns that the bill would be blow a hole in the state's budget and force the closure of 100 or so health clinics.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell hinted on Sunday that Republicans would campaign for office in the months ahead on a pledge to undo health care legislation, should it become law. But the Kentucky Republican refused to commit to pursuing a repeal, saying merely that the health care reform of 2009 would be a major issue come 2010.

"Certainly politically, it is a big problem for [Democrats]. They all kind of joined hands and went off a cliff together," McConnell told ABC's "This Week," when asked whether the GOP would push for a health care reform repeal. "There is great unrest in the Democratic Party. And the reason for that it is, the surveys indicate the American people are overwhelming opposed to this effort to have the government take over their health care. It will be a huge issue next year. And that's why you hear the Democrats saying, 'Let's not tackle any big issues'."

Pressed by host Jake Tapper to say more definitively whether a repeal of health care was going to be a tenet of the Republican agenda, McConnell said he thought he had answered the question. He then proceeded to provide another vague response.

"There's no question that this bill, if it were to become law and frankly even if it doesn't become law, it will be a big, if not central, issue not only in the 2010 election but in the 2012 election," he said.

Tapper took the second of McConnell's remarks as a yes to the question of pursuing a repeal. But reading the language closely, it seems clear that the minority leader tried his best not to engage on the question. Many of the benefits of health care reform aren't going to come into place until 2013 or 2014. But it still seems politically untenable for a party to push for overturning of a law that not only grants billions of dollars in subsidies to help the uninsured purchase insurance, but also achieves commonsense reforms like eliminating the use of pre-existing conditions as a means to deny coverage.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said on Sunday he was "very confident" that there would be no more defections by House Democrats to the Republican Party between now and the 2010 elections.

The Maryland Democrat, in an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," was referring to the announcement this past week that Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith was joining the GOP. Van Hollen laced into his former colleague, calling Griffith an opportunist who was going to have trouble surviving inside the Republican tent. He even brought, to the set, a copy of Griffith's local paper, the Huntsville Times, which accused the lawmaker of operating out of "self-preservation, not conviction."

"He got coal in his stocking" for Christmas, Van Hollen said. "The fact is, [Griffith] did a poll showing he might be in trouble. My view is he miscalculated politically."

The DCCC chair also sought to allay concerns that the Democratic Party was slated to sustain huge losses come 2010. Saying he wouldn't be happy if the Democrats were to lose 20 seats (the average loss sustained by the party in power during the midterm election of a president's first term) Van Hollen stressed that the political landscape was vastly different now then in midterms past.

"Let's put these numbers in perspective," he said. "You said there are 11 Democratic retirements [this year]. There are 12 Republicans who are not running for their seats, including people like Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill) in very competitive seats for Democrats. Number two, we're not going to be surprised like in 1994, and we've been preparing from day one. And number three, Republicans... the public [view] of the Republican Party right now [is] very, very low. And that contrasts with 1994. So is this going to be a tough year? Yeah. We're ready to fight."

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, (I-Conn) a renowned hawk and one of the foremost champions of the invasion of Iraq, warned on Sunday that the United States faced "danger" unless it pre-emptively acts to curb the rise of terrorism in Yemen.

"Somebody in our government said to me in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, Iraq was yesterday's war. Afghanistan is today's war. If we don't act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow's war," Lieberman said, during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday". "That's the danger we face."

The Connecticut Independent, who heads the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, made his remarks just days after a Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab -- a Nigerian with apparent ties to terrorist networks in Yemen -- failed in his attempt to blow up a plane above Detroit, Michigan.

In his appearance on "Fox News Sunday", Lieberman also argued that the botched attack should compel the Obama administration to abandon efforts to transfer suspected-terrorists out of the holding facility at Guantanamo Bay, saying that the complex is now well above international standards.

"I know the president made a promise he'd close Guantanamo because of what it represented in world opinion," Lieberman said. "But today it's a first-class facility. It's way above what's required by the Geneva Convention or our constitution. It would be a mistake to send these 90 people back to Yemen because, based on the past of what's happened when we've released people from Guantanamo, a certain number have gone back into the fight against us. Yemen now becomes one of the centers of that fight."

The frame adopted by the Lieberman in discussing Gitmo will undoubtedly produce shudders among the civil libertarian crowd and even the Obama administration, which insists it has taken every precaution before transferring suspected terrorist to their home country. The senator's calls for pre-emptive action in Yemen (however vague), meanwhile, seem likely to be echoed in the days ahead as a growing number of neoconservative and conservative foreign policy voices have used the attempted airline attack to call into question the tactics Obama has applied to curb terrorism.

"This is an international movement of radicalization," Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday." "The Obama administration came in and said we're not going to use the word terrorism anymore. We're going to call it man-made disasters, trying to, I think, downplay the threat from terrorism. In reality, it's getting much more complex. Radicalization is alive. It is well. They want to attack the United States. That threat is here in the United States. It is lone-wolf individuals, it is people that have become radicalized, that have had some contact with al Qaeda, and then it is the threat that comes from al Qaeda central. Homegrown terrorism, the threat to the United States, is real. I think this administration has downplayed it. They need to recognize it, identify it. It is the only way we are going to defeat it."

When Bill Clinton addressed a crowd of mildly despondent progressives at the Netroots Nation conference this past August, he made a prediction. If health care reform were to pass, the former president said, it would result in a massive uptick in Obama's popularity.

"Within a year, when all those bad things they say will happen don't happen, and all the good things happen, approval will explode," Clinton declared.

A polling bump has served as an alluring carrot to win over Democrats skeptical of health care reform. But not everyone is convinced that the sheer fact that legislation passed will do wonders for Democrats in the world of public opinion.

"Bill Clinton has always been a better strategist than I have been," Mark Mellman, a prominent Democratic pollster, told the Huffington Post. "But, you know, I would not be surprised if we don't see that... I wouldn't be surprised if [Obama's] ratings stay fairly close to where they are. And for two reasons: first of all, the real weight that is holding down the president's approval rating is the economy. There is just no question about that is the real impediment to his approval ratings improving. To pass health care reform on Christmas Eve is not going to improve the economy the day after Christmas. Secondly, at this point this is still a pretty controversial bill. When people know the content they are for it, and when they don't know the content they are pretty divided. So I'm not sure there are going to be a lot of people jumping for joy [when it passes]."

"I think [Obama] is going to get some credit for being effective here and I think that would help him," Mellman added. "But I would be surprised if we saw a big jump in approval ratings. We may see them for a day or two, but I don't think it is going to last very long."

Public opinion prognostication is inherently chancy. But if any pollster has a good grasp of the health care debate, it is Mellman. A highly respected Democratic adviser, he has been consulting Senate Democrats about how to properly sell the reform package they are poised to pass. His advice to those who have spent months engaged in the process is a bit dour: The debate's not over. As Mellman sees it, public opinion on the legislation should remain malleable months, if not years, after passage. Placed in a news vacuum -- as it was during the August recess -- the bill can be painted in the most nefarious of lights. And so, even though Democrats may gain momentary relief by getting the legislation done, they shouldn't rest on their laurels.

"There is going to be a prolonged process here, even after the bill passes, of selling the bill," Mellman said. "The naturally tendency of the legislative process is to move on. You pass legislation, breathe a sigh of relief, and move on to another bill and stop talking about that which is already done. That can't happen here."

Mellman noted that some of the legislative perks from health care reform won't kick in for years down the road; the bill's supporters will be championing abstract achievements. Nevertheless, he said there are immediate benefits to which Democrats should and can point -- namely the prohibition on abusive insurance industry practices.

As for internal party divisions, Mellman said he expects progressive critics of the bill to eventually come back into the fold.

"There is no question that there are a meaningful chunk of voters out there who think this bill did not go far enough in reforming health care," he said. "I think at the end of the day, the people who think this bill didn't go far enough will come to recognize the political realities: which is there aren't the votes to go further. And the only way to get something more than this is to add even more progressive Democrats in the Senate. So their electoral enthusiasm should be increased, not decreased."

If Democrats had any hopes of winning Sen. Olympia Snowe's vote on a health care reform bill, the Maine Republican likely put an end to them on Wednesday when she cast a vote expressing the view that a key element of the legislation is unconstitutional.

Snowe was one of 39 Republicans who voted in favor of a resolution, introduced by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) that the reform bill, and in particular the individual mandate for people to purchase coverage, violates the Constitution's Fifth Amendment and the Commerce Clause.

The measure was ultimately defeated when all the chamber's Democrats voted against it. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okl.) was the only member not voting.

It was, as one Senate aide noted, another effort by the GOP to "kill this bill."

It also seemed to lock Snowe into a no vote on the whole bill. It's hard to imagine her expressing the opinion that the health care legislation is unconstitutional and then turning around weeks later and supporting it.

On a related note, the Senate acting on a bi-partisan basis agreed to move the time for the final vote on health care reform from 8:00 a.m. Thursday morning to 7:00 a.m. The window to get home in time for Christmas is, indeed, closing.

The way Democrats secured the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster of health care legislation has exposed them to accusations that they have abandoned the "reformist" platform that swept them into office.

No cameras were allowed in the room where the final bill was written. And legislative sweeteners were added to the product to win the support of wavering members.

Senate Republicans, hell-bent on extracting every piece of political flesh they can in the current debate, quickly seized the initiative. And when they did, they turned to a familiar, self-proclaimed reformer to wield their message.

In a withering address on the Senate floor on Sunday, Sen. John McCain accused the president and Democratic leadership in the Senate of abandoning pledges of accountability and transparency during the reform process.

Pointing to the deals cut with the pharmaceutical industry, the American Medical Association and others, the Arizona Republican insisted that Democrats had "set up a tent out front and put Persian rugs out in front of it" - greeting special interests with specific gifts.

Recalling President Obama's campaign pledge to televise negotiations, McCain noted that "there has never been a C-SPAN camera" in the rooms where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) crafted the final version of legislation. Drawing attention to some of the sweeteners that were put in the bill to win the support of conservative Democrats, McCain scoffed that there were now "new words in our lexicon," including the "Cornhusker Kickback", in reference to Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and the newly recoined term "The Louisiana Purchase" in reference to concessions to that state's Sen. Mary Landrieu.

McCain's new high-mindedness didn't impress New York Time's columnist Maureen Dowd, who wrote on Thursday that while McCain "used to be such a constructive independent that some of his Republican Senate colleagues called him a traitor. Now he's such a predictable obstructionist that he's in the just-say-no vanguard with the same conservatives who used to despise him." She concludes: "With President Obama, McCain's objections seem motivated more by vendetta than principle."

McCain has indeed proven to be less than a willing negotiator since returning from the campaign trail to the Senate. But his Tuesday rant wasn't just another reflexive broadside. Republican Party strategists say the GOP senses a serious opportunity to portray itself as the party of transparency and reform. They know from their own history that the legislative process is inherently messy, requiring the type of back-room dealing that was recently witnessed. That makes those in power susceptible to claims of corruption - and particularly so when they vowed to hold themselves to higher standards.

Health care legislation may be impossible to stop. But the GOP plans to gain from its fallout.

"I think the difference here is that Obama and the Democrats promised things were going to be different and obviously it is not different," Ed Rollins, a longtime GOP strategist told the Huffington Post. "Obama set the bar very high and he will be measured by his own words and I think to a certain extent when David Axelrod and Harry Reid are saying that this is the way it has always been done, after they ran a campaign saying they wanted to change the way things were normally done, that will really hurt them."

"A cornerstone of Barack Obama's appeal to the American people was the promise that he was something totally different," said Alex Conant, another GOP strategist. "But the way his health care legislation came together was Washington politics as usual. When you consider the backroom deals made to pass this bill, coupled with all the earlier broken promises like bringing lobbyists into the Administration, a pattern emerges."

"What really strikes me about the health care debate is how it's been handled. We've been told that hearings will appear on C-SPAN. They haven't." said Larry Farnsworth, an aide for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. "But as a former Republican leadership aide, what I find most appalling is that they've turned to and cut a deal with Billy Tauzin on behalf of PHARMA. If you remember, six years ago when we passed the prescription drug bill, it was called a boondoggle on the floor of the House by Nancy Pelosi... Now, suddenly, they're working with the same person."

"This provides Republicans an opportunity for the contrast that eluded us in 2008 and 2006. One of the most troubling discoveries in the polling data from 2008 was just how far removed we were from being the party voters associated with the reform mantle," said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who worked on Mitt Romney's campaign. "The health care reform bill and its process are vehicles for the way voters view Washington: partisan, chaotic, unmanageable, wasteful."

Such criticisms call for some context. Republicans, while in power, held no negotiations where C-SPAN could see them. And the gift to Big Pharma that was Medicare Part D will likely still dwarf the benefits the industry will get from the current legislation.

As Craig Shirley, another longtime GOP consultant, noted: "There is an opportunity for Republicans here, but the problem is they are just as beholden to corporate America including the pharmaceuticals and the insurance companies as are the Democrats. Ideology and principles are not factors here. This is simply about raw, naked, unethical power."

Moreover, while Obama has not followed through on some of his pledges regarding transparency, he has on others, and has overall brought some additional sunlight to the legislative process. Indeed, while McCain and others argue that the president abandoned his pledge for transparency, others insist that it is precisely because the legislative process has been so open that Democrats have endured charges of being bought and sold.

"President Obama campaigned on transparency and accountability," said Stephen Wayne, a political science professor at Georgetown University. "Now, what we have seen is the transparency because Obama allowed Congress to detail the legislation. But, when you detail the legislation you also see the deals made either for Nebraska or Louisiana and these other states. So you can argue that the transparency has hurt the administration in claiming the reformer mantle."

WATCH McCain's floor speech:

Former Colorado lieutenant governor Jane Norton, one of the five candidates competing in the Republican primary for the state's 2010 Senate race, is distinguishing herself with her full-hearted embrace of the tea party crowd.

Appearing at a recent coffee-shop event with Colorado voters, Norton sat silently while a female attendee declared twice that President Barack Obama is a Muslim and while a male attendee insisted that the president -- who he deemed "an idiot" -- wanted to let babies die on the side of the road "with the garbage."

"Well as you can tell there is a lot of passion around what is happening in our own country," Norton responded to the crowd, rather than correcting either individual. "And how we can channel that into positive constructive ways that will get our vote out it is going to be absolutely critical."

Also at the event, Norton praised the "tea-party movement and the 9/12 groups" for pushing a right-wing populist, anti-Washington agenda. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee highlighted that exchange in a video it sent to reporters on Monday.

Colorado remains a hub of arch-conservative politics and anti-Obama sentiment despite its recent Democratic leanings. One month ago, an auto dealer in the state gained notoriety when he put up a billboard asking whether Obama was a Jihadist and demanding a birth certificate be produced for the president.

So it's not all that surprising that Norton, in an effort to curry favor with the more impassioned voters, would tolerate that kind of over-the-top rhetoric. Indeed, the National Republican Senatorial Committee worked behind the scenes to get Norton into the race.

And yet, the willingness of the general public to stomach this kind of conspiracy-theory vitriol seems limited.

The health care reform debate may be dying down in Congress, but the ad wars continue.

On Wednesday, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee unveiled a new spot in which it all but accuses the president of abandoning the principles of his health care reform agenda. Tackling the two provisions that rankle liberals the most, the PCCC highlights footage of Obama himself rejecting the efficacy of an individual mandate and insisting that a public option for insurance be part of the final legislative package.

Using Obama's words against him is particularly effective a day after he told the Washington Post that he didn't campaign on a public plan and challenged his critics to identify any "gap" between what he campaigned on last year and the health care legislation Congress is on the verge of passing.

The group is airing the ad in Wisconsin -- in addition to Washington D.C. -- in hopes of persuading Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) to drop his support for a bill without an additional element of government-run insurance. The goal is not necessarily to kill the Senate's legislation, but to use political leverage to make changes once it goes to conference committee with the House.

The initial ad purchase is a modest $40,000. But, as is their usual formula, PCCC will raise money online for more airtime.

"President Obama should frankly feel ashamed that he promised Americans a public option, got people to believe real change was possible, and then never truly fought for it -- instead, pushing a mandate that he specifically campaigned against," said Adam Green, co-founder, Progressive Change Campaign Committee in a statement accompanying the ad's release. "Hopefully, our ad inspires one brave senator to represent the will of the people and insist that a public option be in any final bill."

President Barack Obama, in an interview with The Washington Post, said on Tuesday that in the two years leading up to his election he "didn't campaign on the public option" for insurance coverage.

Could that possibly be true? A plan for government-run insurance has been the focal point of the soon-to-be-concluded health care debate; the catalyst of white-hot partisan warfare; and the provision that progressive and conservatives alike have deemed the arbiter of whether legislation is a success. Is it possible the political world was, by-and-large, confused when they assumed this was what candidate Obama had wanted?

Not entirely.

The Obama campaign clearly did incorporate the public option into its health care agenda. The then-candidate signed a statement put together by the pro-reform group Health Care for America Now, which included the provision as part of its principles for reform. On issue forms Obama filled out for several publications he pledged to "create a new public health plan for those currently without coverage." His campaign arm, Organizing for America, continues to champion a "public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can't find affordable coverage with a real choice." The White House website says that: "The President believes [public health insurance option] will promote competition, hold insurance companies accountable and assure affordable choices. It is completely voluntary."

It does, indeed, seem fair to say that a public option for insurance coverage was a component of the Obama health care agenda. But exactly how serious a component was it?

An examination of approximately 200 newspaper articles from the campaign, as well as debate transcripts and public speeches shows that Obama spoke remarkably infrequently about creating a government-run insurance program. Indeed, when he initially outlined his health care proposals during a speech before the University of Iowa on March 29, 2007, he described setting up a system that resembles the current Senate compromise - in which private insurers would operate in a non-profit entity that was regulated heavily by a government entity.

"Everyone will be able buy into a new health insurance plan that's similar to the one that every federal employee - from a postal worker in Iowa to a Congressman in Washington - currently has for themselves," Obama said at the time.

In the following months, reporters would remark, as did Robert Pear of the New York Times, that Obama "says he would 'establish a new public insurance program' for people who do not have access to group coverage." But it's not clear that their reference was a non-profit entity modeled after congressional coverage or the "government-run plan" that progressives pine for today.

By December 2007, however, Obama clearly had endorsed a government-run option. In a speech at the Iowa Heartland Presidential Forum, the then-Senator declared that if he "were designing a system from scratch" he would "probably move more in the direction of a single-payer plan,"

"But what we have to do right now," Obama added, "is I want to move to make sure that everybody has got coverage as quickly as possible. And I believe that what that means is we expand SCHIP. It means that we extend eligibility for some of the government programs that we have. We set up a government program, as I've described, that everybody can buy into and you can't be excluded because of a pre-existing condition."

In January 2008, meanwhile, Obama submitted an issue form to Ebony Magazine, in which, as the third principle of his health care reform agenda, he promised to "require all employers to contribute toward health coverage for their employees or toward the cost of the public plan."

By that point, the press, commentariat and widely respected health care observers all were reporting the government-run plan as a component of the Obama agenda.

On May 31, 2007, Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and a New Yorker staff writer, wrote in The New York Times that both Obama and then-candidate John Edwards, were offering "a choice of competing private plans, and... a Medicare-like public option, too."

On September 20, 2007, Ezra Klein -- then a staff writer at The American Prospect and now with The Washington Post -- wrote a column for the Los Angeles Times in which he said that "all of the Democrats" in the primary field had offered the option of "a government-run insurance program modeled on, but distinct from, Medicare."

On February 12, 2008, Jonathan Oberlander of the University of North Carolina, told NPR's Fresh Air that Obama and then-Sen. Hillary Clinton both "would create a new public plan similar to Medicare."

"And do we have any sense of what those public plans would look like?" the host asked.

"They have been fairly vague about that, as candidates often are in this election season, other than to say it would be like Medicare," said Oberlander.

On February 26, 2008, meanwhile, Jacob Hacker, the so-called "godfather" of the public option, offered much the same synopsis. In an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, the Yale University professor noted that both Clinton and Obama would require employers to "provide coverage to their workers or enroll them in a new, publicly overseen insurance pool." People in this pool, he added, "could choose either a public plan modeled after Medicare or from regulated private plans."

On July 30, 2008, The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn wrote that Obama was gravitating closer and closer to making the public plan a prominent feature of his health care platform. "[He] not only included an optional public plan in his eventual blueprint for universal coverage; more recently, he also tapped Hacker to be on his campaign's health care advisory committee," Cohn wrote.

On August 18, 2008, Cohn followed up on his story, writing that Heather Higginbottom, the Obama campaign's policy director and now White House adviser, considered the public plan "an elemental pillar" of the proposal. The President, Cohn added (channeling Higginbottom) "is prepared to defend this fall even if, as expected, Republicans attack it (falsely) as a "government takeover" of medicine."

The general press, naturally, followed suit.

Fortune Magazine, on July 7, 2008, wrote that "At the center of Obama's plan to help ease the middle-class crunch would be a requirement that nearly all businesses provide health insurance or contribute to a government-backed "purchasing pool" that includes private plans and one public plan like Medicare."

The Chicago Tribune, on August 21, 2008, wrote that Obama, "would require employers to offer health benefits to workers or contribute to the cost of a new public plan"

The National Journal on August 23, 2008, reported that Obama's health care plan "would require insurance companies to compete in publicly structured exchanges not only with each other but also with a government-run insurance plan. 'Wherever possible," Obama said in an interview last year, he wants to harness "market mechanisms to bring about change.'"

There are countless other examples as well; but remarkably few other times in which Obama himself was quoted supporting an additional program of government run insurance. His campaign never pushed back on the report. If anything, it seems they clearly constructed a health care strategy that embraced the public option as one of several principles of reform.

It also, however, seems clear that the philosophical attachment of the candidate to the issue was limited. Obama would discuss the public option more frequently once he took office. But on the trail he almost always highlighted other elements of his health care agenda first. As one progressive activist who has worked on health care reform for the past year put it:

"What I think [Obama's] point was [in making his statement to the Washington Post], is true. The public option was not his number one talking point on the trail. Hell, it wasn't even number 12. The public option didn't become the central part of health care reform until after [he entered the White House]."

Under fire throughout much of the health care debate from the left, conservative Democratic senators are now getting an even harsher reception from the right.

The angriest accusation: that they sold their votes.

On Tuesday, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) was pilloried during an appearance on C-SPAN Newsmakers for the $300 million in emergency Medicaid funding that she secured for her state in the Senate's legislation. One self-identified Republican caller proclaimed that she had engaged in political prostitution -- trading her vote for the funds. Another called her "nothing but a Judas goat selling out for thirty pieces of silver" who would lose her next election.

"You know," Landrieu chimed in at that point, "being in public office isn't easy because we have to listen to situations like this.

"I'll say it again and I'll continue to say it, I did not vote for this bill because of [the Medicare funding]," she added. "I voted for this bill because it's going to lower costs for Americans, it's going to give the private market the boost and the reform it needs to do a better job for all consumers in our country. It's going to expand the life of Medicare for nine years, it's going to reduce the federal deficit, and it's going to bring efficiencies to a system that is wasteful, abusive and out of control. I know there are some people that don't believe that. Time will tell. And I'll tell that gentleman I've been elected three times to the United States Senate, and I will probably be elected again. Thank you."

Landrieu isn't alone. Both she and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) have been called prostitutes by conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The Nebraska Democrat also secured Medicaid funding for his state -- a legislative coup that was deemed either the "Cornhusker Kickback" or "Cash for Cloture" depending on the reporter or medium.

Nelson isn't up for re-election until 2012. Landrieu, meanwhile, runs again in 2014. So they have three and five years respectively before voters decide their fates. Unlike, say, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) -- another swing-state Democrat who is up for re-election in 2010 -- both Landrieu and Nelson stand to actually benefit from the health care provisions they secured, rather than be blamed for the messy process that produced those provisions.